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Apr-01-07
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| gambitfan: Famous for his "Blackburne attack" in the Scotch game... |
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Jul-05-07
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| WarmasterKron: <Knight13> Re the Blackburne/Kostic gambit, 4.Nxe5?! is indeed bad, but White's still ok after 4...Qg5! 5.Bxf7+! Ke7 6.O-O!. 5.Nxf7?? is the real trap, of course. This may be of interest to some people: http://www.chessarch.com/excavation... - Blackburne-Zukertort, London 1881 annotated by Steinitz. |
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Jul-20-07
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| Sneaky: <Whiskey stimulates the imagination--but eating a big meal before the game is equivalent to giving knight odds.> In other words, kiddies, the moral of this story is.... "Drink some whiskey on an empty stomache; you can't lose." No thanks, not for me--but if it works for others I won't knock it. |
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Aug-30-07
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| whiteshark: <He left it en prise and I took it en passant.> –- Joseph Henry Blackburne (after drinking his opponent’s glass of whiskey during a simul) |
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| Aug-30-07 |
| RookFile: Blackburne had a good long life. |
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| Dec-07-07 |
| Judah: <WarmasterKron: <Knight13> Re the Blackburne/Kostic gambit, 4.Nxe5?! is indeed bad, but White's still ok after 4...Qg5! 5.Bxf7+! Ke7 6.O-O!.>
O rly? What after 6...QxN? |
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| Dec-10-07 |
| brankat: Wow! 166th Birthday!
But, J.H.Blackburne's games are still very much alive. Cheers! |
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| Dec-10-07 |
| D4n: There is nothing wrong with sharing first with Steinitz.... |
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| Jan-02-08 |
| MichAdams: <He left it en prise and I took it en passant. When he objected, I threw him out of a window.> |
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| Jan-02-08 |
| MichAdams: <Re the Blackburne/Kostic gambit, 4.Nxe5?! is indeed bad, but White's still ok after 4...Qg5! 5.Bxf7+! Ke7 6.O-O!.> O rly? What after 6...QxN?> 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nd4 4. Nxe5
Qg5 5. Bxf7+ Ke7 6. O-O Qxe5 7. Bxg8 Rxg8 8. c3 Nc6 9. d4... With all to play for!
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| Feb-26-08 |
| chess man: Blackburne is one the greatest players from that era. I love his games! |
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Mar-08-08
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| Knight13: George Henry Mackenzie has a plus score against Blackburne: search "mackenzie vs blackburne". And yet Blackburne is more well known. |
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May-16-08
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| Knight13: Chessmetrics Player Profile: Joseph Blackburne
Born: 1841-Dec
Died: 1924-Sep
Best World Rank: #2 (77 different months between the September 1873 rating list and the February 1889 rating list ) Highest Rating: 2748 on the August 1886 rating list, #2 in world, age 44y8m Best Individual Performance: 2785 in Frankfurt, 1887, scoring 10/12 (83%) vs 2613-rated opposition |
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| Oct-03-08 |
| GrahamClayton: Blackburne certainly earned his money when giving one of his many simuls across the United Kingdom. An example is the visit made to the Wrexham Chess Club in Wales in 1898. From 3.00 pm to 6.00 pm Blackburne gave a 6 board simultaneous blindfold display. He then would have a meal and a rest before giving a simultaneous exhbition on 30 boards. Blackburne would charge half a crown for a blindfold game and a shilling for an ordinary simultaneous game. Thus the Wrexham displays would have earned Blackburne 45 shillings, or 2 pounds 5 shillings.
It has been estimated that Blackburne was playing around 2,000 games a year in simultaneous exhibitions around this time. Source: Mike Hughes "Taken En Passant", "CHESS", May 2008 |
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Oct-03-08
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| Chessical: <GrahamClayton>: Blackburne would have earned about £180/$320 in current terms for his day's work. If he had to pay for his own accommodation and food and travel, that does not seem a great deal left to pocket as profit. If we use the Wrexham ratio of 1 blindfold to 5 sighted simultaneous games, for 2,000 games a year he would earn about £10,000/$17,800 in today's value. |
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| Dec-10-08 |
| brankat: Close to 20 Gs a year in simuls, plus a few bucks in tournaments, mmybe an odd column for a newspaper/magazine.
For doing something he enjoyed doing.
Not bad at all. Especially by today's standards.
At least 90% of today's GMs can't make their living playing Chess. Not to mention the IMs. In last couple of decades alone quite a few promising GMs gave up their Chess careers, more or less, by the age of 30. R.I.P. master Blackburne.
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| Dec-22-08 |
| zzzzzzzzzzzz: <brankat> R.I.P. GRANDMASTER Blackburne |
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| Dec-22-08 |
| zzzzzzzzzzzz: blackburne annotated a lot of games |
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| Jan-14-09 |
| thebribri8: ...and New York City is pretty crowded. |
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Mar-27-09
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| amadeus: Chess and Alcohol: http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/... |
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Mar-27-09
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| keypusher: From Gunsberg vs Blackburne, 1914: Tarrasch in the tournament book: <Why does Gunsberg, at an age when Anderssen and Steinitz were still enormously strong, show scarcely a trace of his former strength? And why are the <beaux gestes> of Blackburne, a 73-year-old man -- one cannot say an old man -- still so acceptable? Could it be the power of alcohol, which Blackburne consumed in considerable quantities all his life and which proved to be a medium of preservation for him, while Gunsberg is an outspoken teetotaler? Blackburne's case is a phenomenon that the temperance union must explain, for it is appropriate for reducing their efforts directly <ad absurdum>.> And let us not forget, Tarrasch was a doctor. |
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| Dec-10-09 |
| WhiteRook48: happy birthday master Blackburne!! |
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Jan-07-10
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| HeMateMe: Huh? "Black Death" didn't learn chess till the age of 18? Seems hard to believe. I don't think it would be possible today. One of< Morphy's> most for-reaching accomplishments was that of inspiring Joseph Blackburne to take up chess. Blackburne had been impressed enough by the champion, that after Morphy's final visit to England in the Spring of 1859, Blackburne, then an 18 year-old laborer, took up chess. The following year Blackburne joined his local chess club in Manchester. Then the next year, 1861, he played, and lost 5-0, a match with the provincial champion, Edward Pindar (who had just won the Manchester tournament in 1861). Just three months after this devastating loss, Blackburne beat the champion in a match +5-1=2 (They also played another match which Blackburne won). During that monumental year, Blackburne was further impressed by the blindfold prowess of a nemesis of Morphy, Louis Paulsen. Blackburne was inspired to try blindfold chess himself. The next year Blackburne entered the London International tournament, winning 9th place, but beating Steinitz in the process. He lost his day job and took up chess professionally, possibly thinking chess to be an easier way to earn a living. If so, it would be ironic that Blackbune turned into one of the hardest working professional players of all time. When people discuss "natural players," those who seem to understand the intricacies of the game almost without effort, the names of Morphy and Capablanca, both privileged child prodigies, come up immediately.< But, having the disadvantage of not even learning chess until he was 18, Blackburnes own meteoric rise attests to his uncanny natural talent >which seems at the very least equal to that of either Morphy of Capablanca. When Blackburne died in 1924, he had been playing professional chess around 60 years. |
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Jan-27-10
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| Benzol: <ughaibu> asked on the thread of this game Kramnik vs Topalov, 2003 about a blindfold game where Blackburne announced a mate in sixteen moves. "Blackburne's Chess Games" has the following position: Blackburne - Scott
click for larger view 1.Rxe6+ Kh7
2.Qd3+ Rg6
3.Qxg6+ fxg6
4.Re7+ Kg8
5.Be6+ Kf8
6.Rf7+ Ke8
7.Nf6+ Kd8
8.Rd7+ Kc8
9.Rxa7+ Kb8
10.Nd7+ Kc8
11.Nc5+ Kd8
12.Rd7+ Kc8
13.Rf7+ Kd8
14.Nb7+ Ke8
15.Nxd6+ Kd8
and either 16.Rd7 or 16.Bb6 mates.
Really remarkable considering he was blindfolded. The game isn't in the DB and my book only has the game starting from the position above. It's a pity that the whole game doesn't seem to have survived. Blackburne was a truly great player. |
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Jan-27-10
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| ughaibu: Considering this: http://marshtowers.blogspot.com/200... and this: http://books.google.com/books?id=Lv... it seems likely that the score is lost. |
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